Search form

Search

Sign up

Help protect the places we love, the values we share

Optional Member Code

In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to Pennsylvania's environment
• opportunities to join other Pennsylvanians on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

News Release

Contact

Philadelphia, PA – Days after the Pennsylvania Senate passed legislation creating a roadblock to climate action (HB 2354), dozens of Pennsylvania solar businesses endorsed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan as a way to build Pennsylvania’s economy and fight climate change.

“As solar power installers, manufacturers, designers, aggregators, product suppliers, and consultants, we welcome the EPA’s unveiling of the Clean Power Plan,” reads the letter, organized by the advocacy group PennEnvironment. “This plan is a critical step toward transforming our energy system to one that protects our health and environment, and that of our children.”

In June the U.S. EPA proposed its Clean Power Plan, which would require power plants in Pennsylvania to cut carbon emissions 32 percent by 2030. The plan is open for public comment until December 1st, and could be finalized by next year. 34 solar companies in Pennsylvania joined over 500 others across the United States in signing the letter supporting the Clean Power Plan.

“Solar produced electricity requires no drilling, no mountain-top-removing, no burning, no processing, no re-fueling, and thus there is no polluting,” said Dara Bortman, Vice President for Sales and Marketing at Exact Solar in Yardley. “Once solar panels are installed they generate electricity from a free and abundant source for decades. It's very hard to compete with that.”

Despite state level flexibility, the Pennsylvania General Assembly recently passed HB 2354, which will make it harder for Pennsylvania to develop a plan that cuts carbon pollution under the Clean Power Plan while growing solar power in Pennsylvania. Businesses signing the letter said the proposal could dramatically accelerate the development of clean energy across Pennsylvania.

“As the nation’s fastest growing source of renewable energy, solar can play a major role in meeting our nation’s energy and environmental challenges,” states the letter, signed by EIS Solar, The Energy Co-Op, and other major solar companies across Pennsylvania.

PennEnvironment’s sister organizations around the country recruited solar businesses nationwide to the sign the letter, which was delivered today to the White House.

“The climate crisis demands that we fulfill our vast potential for solar energy,” said Stephen Riccardi, organizer with PennEnvironment, “and the businesses here in Pennsylvania and across the nation are ready to rise to the challenge.”

###

PennEnvironment is a statewide, citizen based advocacy organization working for a cleaner, greener, healthier future.